


Standing at the Bottom of a Hill

by Masterless



Series: The Inevitable Hospital AU [5]
Category: WTFock | Skam (Belgium)
Genre: M/M, TW: suicide talk, This Is Sad, eventually, everything is going to be okay, hospital au, tw: PTSD, tw: bipolar disorder, tw: depression, tw: mental illness, tw: mentioned sexual abuse, tw: post traumatic stress disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:01:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 13,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22324480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masterless/pseuds/Masterless
Summary: Robbe felt at peace with the decisions he’d made.He wouldn’t say he was happy, because if he was happy, then he wouldn’t be in the situation that he was in. He wouldn’t have made the choices that he made. But he’s made up his mind, and it filled him with a calm sense of resolution. This is how it will be. This is what he has chosen, how he decides to do things. He was tired of his papa making choices for him that he didn’t like. He was tired of just going along with everything that his friends wanted to do. He was tired of it all, tired of everything.So.Robbe had made his decision.
Relationships: Sander Driesen/Robbe IJzermans
Series: The Inevitable Hospital AU [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1606945
Comments: 45
Kudos: 334





	1. A Decision Made

Robbe felt at peace with the decisions he’d made.

He wouldn’t say he was happy, because if he was happy, then he wouldn’t be in the situation that he was in. He wouldn’t have made the choices that he made. But he’s made up his mind, and it filled him with a calm sense of resolution. This is how it will be. This is what he has chosen, how he decides to do things. He was tired of his papa making choices for him that he didn’t like. He was tired of just going along with everything that his friends wanted to do. He was tired of it all, tired of everything.

So.

Robbe had made his decision.

Robbe had decided to kill himself.

It wasn’t a hard choice to make. It wasn’t even a far off, sudden thought. It had been rolling around in his head for a few months now. He had thought about it before, not as a certainty, but as a possibility. He thought about it when his mama was admitted into the hospital. He’d thought about it when he’d moved in with his papa, more than an hour away from his school. He’d thought about it, clearly and precisely, when he was hanging out with his friends in the bathroom of the stupid party that they’d been at where he’d met Noor. He liked Noor, he did, but not the way she liked him, not the way that his friends thought he did. He had dug that hole for himself, and he couldn’t get out of it. 

He had woken up, one warm October day, and had a crystalline thought. Today was the day. He already knew that he was going to overdose. He had stolen his mama’s leftover antidepressants and he’d bought a bottle of whisky. He had them hidden in the bottom drawer of his closet. He knew that today was the day he would take them. He sat up in his bed, looking around at his room, thinking to himself. Should he do it now? 

No. He had a test in maths that he needed to take. He hadn’t said goodbye to his friends. He hadn’t written a note. He always read that people left a note to explain why they did it. So that was the first thing he’d do before going to school. He’d write a note, explaining everything to his papa. His overwhelming feeling of anxiety, his overpowering apathy for everything, his self hatred, the way he couldn’t be himself, the way that everyone would hate him when they found out that he was gay. He wrote everything down, he wrote everything out, and felt something solidify in his mind. Yes. Today was the day.

He went to school with a plan in mind to burn every bridge that needed burning. If he was going to die, then he didn’t want anyone to think there was something he hadn’t said. So he was going to start with Jens. His best friend, his first crush, his first everything.

“What’s up?” Jens asked, when Robbe had pulled him into a deserted classroom. “What’s going on?”

“I just need to tell you something.” Robbe took a deep breath in, but he wasn’t nervous. He knew that Jens was going to hate him, so he knew there was nothing more to lose. “I told Luka’s girlfriend that Jana kissed him. I was the one that started everything. It’s my fault that you two broke up.”

Jens looked at him with a blank expression. 

“I did it because…” Robbe smiled to himself. “Because I like you. More than just being friends.” 

And he stepped forward and kissed Jens.

It wasn’t exactly what he’d expected a kiss with Jens would be like. Then again, every time he’d imagined kissing Jens, he had day dreamed about Jens coming to his senses and professing that his love was requited. In reality, Jens just stood there, looking at him with that blank face, his eyes searching Robbe’s.

Robbe started to turn away, started to leave, but Jens grabbed his wrist.

“What are you planning to do?”

A flare of terror shot through Robbe’s chest. What had given it away?

“What do you mean?” Robbe asked.

“Why are you saying goodbye?” 

“I’m not.” Robbe swallowed. “I’m just telling you the truth. I can’t stand having it inside anymore, I needed to tell you.” 

He was surprised at how easily the lie came to him.

Jens looked at him deeply again, a slight furrow in his brow. “You promise?”

“I promise.”

He let go. 

Robbe walked away. He found Moyo and Aaron in the courtyard, laughing about something or other. Moyo nodded in greeting when Robbe walked up to them, but went back to the video he was watching with Aaron.

“I wanted to talk to you guys,” Robbe said.

“Okay…” Moyo said, putting his phone down. “What’s up?”

“I just wanted to say that I think the stuff you say about girls and about gay guys is disgusting.” Robbe shrugged. “I think you’re a sexist, homophobic asshole, and it really hurts when you say stuff like that.”

There was a beat of silence.

Moyo laughed, confused. “What? You fucking gay or something?”

“Yeah, I am.” Robbe smiled. “I’m gay, and I don’t want to sleep with you.”

He walked away again, towards his next, and last, class. His head felt clear and his chest was no longer tight. He’d said everything that he’d been keeping inside of him for so long. He was at peace with himself, with the people around him. He was still set on killing himself, and there really wasn’t anything that would change his mind.

But, he found out, Robbe wouldn’t get the choice.

There was the sound of an ambulance outside. It had stopped across the street.

Robbe was reading the board when an office aid come to the door of his classroom. She walked in, whispered to the teacher, and walked slowly over to him. 

“Robbe,” she said, leaning down at the side of his desk. “Can you come with me, please?”

“Sure.”

Robbe left his things at his desk. He followed the woman down to the front office.

“What’s going on?” he asked when he saw his papa. “What are you doing here?”

The bottom fell out of his stomach when he saw what his papa was holding. He thought he had put it away, how could his papa have found it? Because he hadn’t hidden it, he had left it on his desk.

His papa was holding his note.

His papa was crying.

He knew, at the sight of his dad, frantic, his hair astray, that the ambulance outside was for him. 

Robbe was being taken to the hospital.


	2. The Phone

Robbe was sitting in his room, his clinic room. It was bare of personality, bare of anything that he could call his. Even the clothes he was wearing weren’t his. They had taken his coat and jeans to check that he didn’t have anything sharp secreted in hidden pockets. They didn’t take his phone, but he was told that if he caused any problems, it would be taken away. He was given sweats and a hoodie with the hospital logo on it for the time being, and brought to a room on the psychiatric ward floor. It was cold, it smelled like antiseptic, and he was lonely.

More than lonely, though, Robbe was pissed off.

Of course he’d left the note on his desk. Of course his dad had found it.

Fucking hell.

Robbe even fucked up killing himself.

He just fucked everything up.

His phone was blowing up, his friends texting the group chat. He scrolled to the beginning.

_ Moyo: Robbe, wtf? _

_ Jens: What’s going on? _

_ Moyo: He just came up to me and called me a sexist, homophobic asshole, told us he was gay, and then walked away. _

_ Jens: Robbe, say something. _

_ Jens: Robbe _

_ Jens: Robbe!  _

_ Aaron: dude, what the fuck is going on?  _

_ Aaron: why aren’t you answering? _

_ Moyo: Because he’s being a prick, that’s why. Who gives a fuck? If he doesn’t want to be friends, why fucking bother? _

_ Jens: Because he told me some stuff today and I got a bad feeling. _

_ Aaron: a bad feeling? like what kind of bad feeling? _

_ Moyo: Like a bad, bad feeling? _

_ Jens: Like a, this is goodbye, kind of feeling. _

_ Moyo: Shit. _

_ Aaron: what do you mean, a this is goodbye feeling? _

_ Aaron: he’s not at the front of the school _

_ Moyo: He’s not at the bus stop. _

_ Moyo: You guys, I have a really bad feeling about this… _

_ Jens: Fuck _

_ Moyo: What? _

_ Aaron: What? _

_ Jens: He’s not at home. _

**Six missed calls from Jens**

**Three missed calls from Aaron**

**Five missed calls from Moyo**

_ Jens: Robbe, fucking answer!! _

_ Aaron: Amber says that Jana says she saw Robbe getting into an ambulance with is papa before the last bell rang _

_ Jens: Fuck fuck fuck fuck _

_ Moyo: Robbe! Answer us! Are you okay??? _

The last message came in four minutes ago. Should he answer? He wanted everything to stop spinning. He couldn’t believe what he’d done, what he’d said. How could he have kissed Jens? How could all of this be happening to him? He had made a plan, he’d felt good, he’d felt calm, for the first time in fucking years, and now he was right back there, standing at the bottom of a hill. He couldn’t get back up, he couldn’t get any closer to the top. He’d done everything, thinking he’d never have to see them again.

_ Robbe: I’m okay. _

_ Robbe: I’m at the hospital. _

_ Robbe: I don’t know how long I’ll be here. _

_ Moyo: bro, why are you there? Why’d you say all that stuff to us? _

_ Robbe: Because I was just clearing things up. I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again, so I just wanted to get everything out in the open. _

_ Aaron: You thought you wouldn’t be seeing us again? _

_ Jens: Why not? _

_ Moyo: Robbe? _

_ Jens: Robbe! _

**Incoming call: Jens**

Robbe sighed, pulling his knees to his chest. He was sitting on the bed, his shoes and socks on the floor. He didn’t want to have this conversation, but… he couldn’t avoid it.

“Hi,” he said, answering the call.

“Robbe, what the fuck is going on?” Jens asked. He sounded genuinely freaked out. “Why are you in a hospital, what’s happened?”

“Nothing’s happened.” Robbe sighed. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Okay, but.” It was Moyo. He must be on speaker, the three of them huddled around it at Jens’ house. “But why didn’t you think you weren’t going to see us again?”

“Because I wasn’t…” He couldn’t say it now, he was freaked out by it. He had been so sure, so clear, so set on his plan, but now that things had been messed up, he couldn’t get it out. “I just… I didn’t… think I’d see anyone ever again.”

There was a silence from the other end of the line.

“But…” Jens sounded almost broken. “You promised.”

“Yeah, well, he lied,” Moyo said. 

“Fuck off,” Jens snapped. “You don’t understand.”

“Don’t understand?” Moyo laughed. “I don’t understand? I understand perfectly clear that you thought getting him to promise not to do anything bad would stop him from killing himself.”

“Shut up!” Jens shouted. “You… you don’t know that’s-”

“I don’t know if that's what he was going to do? I can put the pieces together pretty well, Jens. He was saying goodbye, he was burning bridges, he’s in a fucking hospital. What do you think happened?”

Robbe stared at his phone. How could he have fucked up? He had fucked up his one way out of this place. He had fucked up his friendship with Jens, with Moyo, with Aaron. He had fucked up Jens and Moyo’s friendship. 

“Stop it!” Robbe yelled. “Fucking stop it!”

They stopped fighting.

“Robbe,” Jens said. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I tried!” Robbe felt something building in his chest. “I fucking tried, Jens. Every time I tried to talk to you, you went off with Moyo to go talk to some hot chicks. Every time I tried to tell you, you walked away to play football. Every time I tried to tell you that I’m gay, you kept saying all I needed was to get a girlfriend, then I’d be less stressed, then I’d be less tense. Fuck you, I didn’t try to talk to you. I tried my fucking hardest, but you just proved to me that you didn’t care! You never cared! I fucked everything up between us, but you couldn’t give a shit because you never cared!”

“I care!” Jens shouted back. “Robbe, what the fuck are you talking about? You didn’t fuck anything up between us, you-”

But Robbe couldn’t listen to any more of him. He hit the end call button and pushed his phone away from him, but it was still too close. He picked it up and threw up across the room, where it hit the wall and fell to the floor, it’s screen blank and cracked.


	3. Bowie Fan

It was two in the morning.

Who the fuck was listening to David fucking Bowie at two in the fucking morning? 

Robbe sat up in his bed, looking at the wall to his right, the one his bed was pressed against. His next door neighbour seemed to think that two in the morning was a good time to blast David Bowie at full volume. And why not? Why the fuck not? It’s not like there were other people in the ward. It’s not like this asshole was being rude and inconsiderate. It’s not like this person was being a distraction. It’s not like this dickhead was keeping Robbe awake. 

Fuming, he stood and stormed into the hallway. There was an orderly at the other end, nodding to his head to whatever it was he had playing on his headphones. He wasn’t even paying attention to the hallway. What a fucking joke. What a fucking joke!

Robbe pounded on the door next to his. The music paused for a moment, but then resumed at the same volume. He pounded on the door again, and again the music paused. The door opened, revealing one of the most attractive guys that Robbe had ever seen, with bleached blonde hair and clear green eyes, but that didn’t matter at the moment. What mattered was that he had been blasting David fucking Bowie at two in the morning and Robbe couldn’t sleep.

“You look a little young to be an orderly,” Bowie Fan said.

“That’s because I’m not a fucking orderly, I’m in the room next to yours, so if you could shut your fucking music off, it’d be much appreciated.”

The other teen stared at him with a startled look.

“Sorry,” he said, sheepishly. “I’ll turn it down.”

“Thank you.”

Robbe turned around and walked back to his room, a thin layer of guilt settling over his stomach. What did it matter that he had yelled at Bowie Fan? Bowie Fan was being obnoxious, even if he didn’t know Robbe was there. Maybe he shouldn’t have yelled at him.

By morning, the guilt had congealed in his stomach into a thick, pulsating mass. He couldn’t eat, he couldn’t think, and most importantly, he couldn’t sleep. Which was almost as annoying as his guilt, but Robbe found that his guilt won out. So he went to knock on the guys door again, only he found it already open when he stepped out of his own.

“Morning,” Bowie Fan said from his bed. He was still in his pajamas, still under his blankets even, but he seemed perfectly fine with having his door wide open. “Sorry about last night. I didn’t know there was anyone knew here.”

“No,” Robbe said, leaning on the door frame. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. It was my first night here and… I’m a little stressed.”

“Did they give you any meds yet?”

“No. Why?”

“They usually give you diazepam your first night here to calm any nerves, but maybe they’re waiting until this morning.”

“Maybe.” Robbe sighed. “But yeah. I shouldn’t have yelled at you…”

“Sander,” Bowie Fan said.

“Sander.” Robbe smiled. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you, Sander.” He turned to leave, but then turned back. “I’m Robbe.”

“Robbe,” Sander repeated. “It’s nice to meet you, Robbe.”


	4. Scream

The actual clinic part of the hospital was a lot smaller than he’d thought it was. There were two wings of rooms, one for girls and one for boys, three therapy rooms, a cafeteria, and a recreation room. There were, of course, bathrooms spread around the place, but they didn’t really add anything to the size of the place. It turned out that he and Sander were the only boys at the time, though the ward had the capacity to hold six at a time. There were six girls, and if another girl were to be admitted, then she would get a room in the boys wing. Robbe didn’t mind the place, he really didn’t, he just didn’t want to be there. 

In all honesty, Robbe still wanted to be dead. Being in the hospital hadn’t change that. Things hadn’t changed inside him since he’d gone to the hospital. He was still completely overwhelmed with everyone knowing his secrets, still completely unmotivated to do anything aside from worry. He had so much in his brain, his thoughts raced, and they all said something worse than the next. He was consumed, daily, by the overwhelming fear of people knowing him. And they did.

His friends knew him, knew what he had tried to keep from them for so long. It hadn’t mattered when he’d told them because he thought he was going to be dead before they could reach out to him to react. But now? Now, he was completely beside himself with regret and anger and paranoia. They said they didn’t care, but of course they did. How could they not?

He’d been in the hospital for two whole days and he hadn’t heard anything from or seen his papa aside from the long ambulance ride there. The ride was punctuated by questions from the paramedic. If he’d taken anything, if he had anything on him, if he was scared, if he was upset. And how could he answer those questions with his papa right there, staring at him as if he’d broken the fucking world? As if Robbe had doomed them all to live in an eternal pit of damnation and regret? He didn’t say a word.

Robbe just felt like screaming. He couldn’t get out in words what his doctors wanted him to say. He couldn’t get in out in art, like they had tried next. He could do it in music, in writing. He just had too much inside of him.

“Come,” his doctor said on Robbe’s fifth day in the ward, his fifth unsuccessful day of trying to articulate his feelings. “Come with me.”

Robbe followed, not entirely sure where they were going. They walked through the ward, out into the rest of the hospital, and up until they reached the roof.

“Now,” his doctor said. “I’m trusting you not to take a running jump off the side, okay?”

Robbe nodded.

“Good.” His doctor took a deep breath in and released it. “I want you to scream.”

“What?” Robbe asked, confused.

“I want you to scream!” The doctor repeated. “SCREAM! Yell as loud as you can! Swear, shout at your family, your friends! Get it all out!”

It took him a while to start, but he did. Robbe found himself raw and weak at the end of the whole experience, sitting almost crumpled on the rooftop, but feeling like the tenseness in his chest was almost gone. He could still feel it there, still felt like something was holding him back, but he felt better. Better than he had in a long while. 


	5. Fake Gay Guy

The screaming hadn’t helped as much as he thought at first. Robbe was now able to talk about his family and his friends, but he couldn’t talk about himself. He complained at length about Moyo and Aaron, and even Jens, about Jana and her friends, about his papa. He couldn’t complain about his mama, though he knew there was stuff inside of him about her that needed to be said. He couldn’t talk about his own feelings, about what he wanted, and specifically about  _ who _ he wanted. He couldn’t talk about being gay, he couldn’t talk about how every time he looked at a guy he liked he got this initial reaction that he liked what he saw, followed immediately by fear and disgust. He couldn’t talk about how, despite everything, he couldn’t be depressed, he couldn’t be like his mama. He found the irony in it, he knew he was severely depressed if killing himself was something he still wanted to do, something he had planned on doing for months, but he almost couldn’t admit it to himself. On the one hand, he knew it was happening. On the other, however, he couldn’t admit it, even to himself.

The only good thing that came of this whole experience, so far at least, was that he was getting closer to Sander. He sometimes still called the bleached blond boy Bowie Fan in his head, but Sander didn’t seem to care. He liked the nickname. Sander was indeed the biggest Bowie fan that Robbe had ever met, that Sander had ever met, and he liked that. He loved David Bowie.

Sander was also bipolar. He had been manic when he was admitted to the hospital, and he had only just come back from a severe depressive episode when Robbe had arrived. They joked that Robbe had somehow drawn it out of him and taken it for himself, in their better moments. Sander knew what it was like to be so deep in a hole that there didn’t seem to be a way out, knew what it was like to stand at the bottom of that insurmountable hill. He knew that he should stay away when Robbe was curled up in his bed with his face towards the wall. He knew that he should come and lay next to him when Robbe was facing away from the wall. He knew how to deal with it when Robbe was angry at the world and nothing was going to make him feel better. He knew, deep down, that Robbe wasn’t telling him the whole truth about why he was there.

Sander, unfortunately, also had a girlfriend. Or, he had a girl that called herself his girlfriend who he had broken up with but who didn’t believe him. And Robbe knew her, which was even weirder. She was Jens’ ex, Britt. She did a double take when she saw him, sat on Sander’s bed, wrapped up in one of Sander’s baggier sweaters. Sander had taken to giving him sweaters when he saw Robbe because, he said, Robbe always looked cold. Robbe liked wearing the other boy’s clothes, like the softness of the fabric and the smell that was so uniquely Sander. Like sandalwood, a hint of oranges, and a smell that just whispered boy. It was the closest Robbe let himself get to actually being with a boy, wrapped up in Sander’s clothes. He hadn’t told Sander yet, he didn’t know if he could. Sander had a kind of girlfriend, and he would hate Robbe if he knew.

Robbe liked Sander, he had to admit that to himself, but he wouldn’t let it go further in his mind. He wouldn’t think about how his heartbeat fluttered when Sander was near. When he smiled. When he lightly brushed Robbe’s arm with his long, artists fingers. He wouldn’t let himself think about how, sometimes, when Sander was in his bed, Sander looked at him like he wanted to kiss him. He wouldn’t let himself think about how he wanted to kiss Sander back. He wouldn’t let himself think about how, late at night, the first time Robbe touched himself in weeks, it was Sander’s hands and arms and lips and eyes and body that he had imagined touching him, inside of him. He hadn’t even thought of Jens, like he usually did. In fact, he hadn’t thought of Jens, in a romantic or sexual way at least, since he’d met Sander. And he couldn’t think of that.

It took Robbe by surprise when his friends came to visit. He knew that patients weren’t allowed visitors for the first three weeks, and it took him by surprise because he hadn’t thought he’d been there for three weeks. Because he hadn’t thought that his friends would visit him. 

“Hey,” Jens said, looking into his room. Moyo and Aaron were stood awkwardly behind him, waving slightly. “Can, uh… Can we come in?”

Robbe saw sitting on his bed, writing in his stupid journal that his therapist had told him to write. Well, it had been helping a little. He could write his feelings, even if he couldn’t talk about that.

“Yeah,” Robbe said, his voice almost a whisper.

They filed in, standing even more awkwardly in the free spaces of his room.

“You can sit down,” Robbe told them.

Jens sat on his bed and Moyo took the desk chair, leaving Aaron to sit on the floor. He didn’t look too put out by it, but he didn’t look entirely comfortable, so Robbe offered him a pillow to sit on. Aaron took it was a strained smile.

“So…” Moyo started. “How are you?”

“Bro,” Jens sighed.

Robbe smiled a little. “I’m okay.”

The room filled with silence, settling into the corners like a thick ooze. They all just stared at each other, not really knowing what else to say.

“Made any friends?” Aaron asked.

Jens sent him a glare and Moyo slapped the back of his head, frowning and shaking his head.

“What?” Aaron asked, and like that, it was normal again.

Robbe laughed, fully, wholeheartedly, like he hadn’t in months, maybe years. Jens looked at him with wide, hopeful eyes, and he smiled.

“I have,” Robbe answered. “The guy next to me is called Sander, he’s… nice.”

“Is he better than us?” Moyo asked, pretending to be offended.

“Oh, definitely,” Robbe said. He groaned and rolled his eyes, leaning back against the wall. “The first time I met him, though, was at two in the fucking morning, because he was blasting music. He didn’t know that I was here, so I understand it now, but that night? I was so pissed off.”

“Damn,” Aaron said. “That has to be annoying.”

Robbe nodded.

The silence crept back, but it wasn’t uncomfortable any more.

“So,” Robbe said. “What have I missed?”

Jens shrugged, leaning back, too. “Not much really. We got a new maths teacher, the old one quit because he said it wasn’t his calling anymore. Fucking weirdo.”

“Aaron is still obsessed with Amber,” Moyo snickered.

“No!” Robbe laughed. “Aaron, she’s not interested!”

“She is!” Aaron blushed, looking almost desperate. “She’s been talking to me a lot more since-” He closed his mouth quickly, looking at Robbe with concern. “Well… since… you left.”

Robbe nodded. “I mean, she wasn’t talking to you much before I left.”

Moyo snorted.

“She still doesn’t like you,” Jens said, smiling. 

“She will!” Aaron said.

Moyo glanced at Robbe and then down to the floor. “Umm… Noor’s been asking after you.”

Noor. Robbe had met her at a party, had even kissed her. It had been a week before his plan had all gone to shit.

“What did you tell her?” Robbe asked.

“We told her that you weren’t at school at the moment,” Jens said. “And that we didn’t know when you’d be back.”

“Did… did you tell her about me being…?”

“About you being gay?” Moyo asked.

Robbe nodded.

“No.” Aaron sighed. “We thought that maybe you’d want to do that. It;s not our thing to say, you know?”

Robbe nodded again. He looked around the group, at Jens watching him, at Aaron fidgeting with his shirt, at Moyo avoiding his eyes. “Are… are you guys okay with that?”

Moyo looked up at him with a confused frown. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

A knot unwound itself in Robbe’s chest. “Because… because of everything you say! Because of all the times you’ve called me gay or a fag or a fucking fruit, Moyo!”

“Bro, it was just a joke,” Moyo said.

“Yeah, well it wasn’t fucking funny!”

There was a knock at the door. It hit them all, with a sudden swiftness that felt like an oncoming train, that they were not at Robbe’s house. That they were still in a hospital, and that a doctor was standing at Robbe’s door.

“I hate to interrupt,” he said, sounding like he did actually care. “But it’s time for Robbe’s meeting. You can either stay here or you’ll have to leave.”

Robbe stood and followed the doctor, not looking back at his friends, not really wanted to see their faces after his outburst. He didn’t expect them to be there when he got back, feeling wrung out and stretched after his therapy session. He was only half right. Moyo and Aaron were gone, but Jens was still there. When Robbe stopped in his doorway, Jens stood up from his bed and walked to him, engulfing him in a hug. It took everything inside of Robbe to not break down crying. 

“I’m here,” Jens whispered into his hair.

And Robbe would have killed for what happened next, if only it had happened a few months ago.

Jens leaned down and kissed him.

Robbe kissed him back, letting Jens lead him to the bed, letting Jens sit them both down. His head swam as Jens licked into his mouth, as their tongues touched. His chest felt like it was fit to burst, if it were not for one thing.

Robbe didn’t want this anymore.

An image popped into his head, of Sander looking at him like he wanted to kiss Robbe like Jens was doing now. And Robbe found that he wanted to kiss Sander like he was kissing Jens. And he knew, he could feel it, that Jens didn’t actually want to be kissing Robbe.

“Stop,” Robbe whispered against Jens’ lips.

Jens pulled back slightly, resting their foreheads together. They were both breathing heavily, Jens’ cheeks slightly red. He was looking at Robbe, waiting for his reaction.

“You don’t want this,” Robbe mumbled.

“I want to give you whatever you need to be happy,” Jens said.

“This won’t make me happy.” Robbe smiled softly. “It would have, months ago. Weeks ago, even. But now?” He huffed out a laugh through his nose. “Jens, you’re straight.”

Jens leaned back a bit more. “I know, but… if you… want me, then…”

“I don’t.” Robbe’s smile dropped. “And I wouldn’t want you like this. Not because you felt like you needed to… give yourself to me for me to be happy.”

Jens was quiet for a moment. “I love you, Robbe.”

“I love you, too, Jens.” 

“But just as a friend.”

“Just as a friend.”

Jens smiled at him. “You know, I think I would have made a good fake gay guy.”

Robbe snorted. “No, you wouldn’t have.”


	6. I Like You

Sander was actively avoiding Robbe. He could feel it, see it. Sander didn’t come to visit him anymore, didn’t come to lay with him anymore. He sat with a group of girls he had said he didn’t like at lunch instead of Robbe, he sat across the room during art therapy, during group. Sander didn’t want to talk to him anymore.

And it hurt a lot more than Robbe wanted to admit.

He couldn’t figure out why.

Well, he knew why it hurt, but he didn’t know why Sander was avoiding him. Sander’s avoidance of him wasn’t based on his bipolar, he never did this before. Sander had spent time with Robbe during his depression, and while Sander hadn’t experienced a mania when Robbe was around, he’d told the other boy about it. He was just not talking to Robbe for no reason, or at least that was how it seemed.

Robbe wanted to get to the bottom of it, so he stationed himself outside of Sander’s room early before he was supposed to get up. When Sander opened the door, he would have to walk through Robbe to get around him. He couldn’t avoid him any longer.

Only Sander didn’t come out of the door.

There was no noise inside the room, but there was no light coming from inside either, which meant that Sander’s curtains were closed. Their curtains had to be opened when the day began, and could only be closed at night. Sander was inside. 

Robbe was called down to breakfast before he plucked up the courage to go inside. He sat by himself at his table, poking his spoon disinterestedly into his porridge. Sander wasn’t in the room, he hadn’t come to breakfast. He wasn’t in art therapy or group, either, and Robbe had trouble concentrating on himself during individual therapy. He still couldn’t talk about himself, so he told his therapist about what had happened a few days ago with Jens. They were friends, and it was so out of character for Jens to kiss him, but he could understand why the taller boy did it. He did it because he didn’t know how else to make Robbe happy. And it would have, a while ago, but not any longer. But Robbe still couldn’t talk about himself.

He couldn’t really figure out why.

When he was done, he went back to his room. Sander’s door was open, but the bleached blond boy wasn’t in there. Robbe, not really thinking about it, went into Sander’s room and sat down on his bed. He found himself laying on his side, reveling in the smell of his bed, his eyes closed. He was so comfortable there. Sander had a better bed than him, or his parents had brought something in to make it softer. Robbe could feel himself falling asleep.

“What are you doing here?”

Robbe sat up groggily, his eyes slowly blinking open. The light had changed a little. He had fallen asleep. 

“I was waiting for you,” Robbe said, looking at Sander standing in the doorway, his arms crossed.

“Why?”

“Because you’ve been avoiding me.”

Sander shrugged. “I don’t really like being led on.”

Robbe blinked, not following. “I’m not leading you on?” He felt a sliver of panic forming in his chest. “I’ve never… I would never lead you on.”

“Right.” Sander smirked meanly. It wasn’t a pretty look on him. “I bet your boyfriend would say differently.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend.” Robbe shook his head. “I’m not…” He couldn’t deny it, but he still couldn’t say it. Why?

Sander shifted in his stance, just enough to show that his resolve was crumbling. “Who was that guy, then? The one you were kissing?”

“Jens.” Robbe shrugged. “He’s just a friend, he’s straight. He kissed me because he thought it would make me feel better.”

“Did it?”

“No.”

Sander stepped forward, his shoulders sagging. He sat down next to Robbe and sighed, resting his head in his hands.

“Why didn’t it make you feel better?” Sander asked, looking at him sideways. “You had to have liked him if he thought that was what would make you feel better.”

“I… I used to like him.” Robbe swallowed against his dry throat. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“And you don’t like him any more?”

Robbe shook his head.

“So who do you like?” Sander snorted, looking down at the floor. “He’s a handsome guy, you’d be lucky.”

He couldn’t speak. Something had come and stolen his voice, he couldn’t continue. He couldn’t speak about himself, it just didn’t feel right. Everyone else was so much more important than him, he didn’t deserve to talk about himself. 

Sander looked up at him. “Who do you like?”

Robbe shrugged, looking away. He kept his mouth shut.

“Because I like you,” Sander said. “I like you a lot.”

It didn’t compute in Robbe’s mind for a few moments. He stared at the floor as the words swam around in his head, and he felt something small, something hopeful, flutter in his chest. It was overwhelmed, though, by a sense of panic. A deep, ugly, demanding panic that couldn’t be pushed aside by the hope, feeble and weak as it was. And the panic was flooding the rest of his body. Robbe felt tight all over, tense and clammy. 

Sander was looking at him, and made a decision that he really shouldn’t have, at least not then. He leaned forward to kiss Robbe.

Robbe pushed him away, standing up and away.

“Robbe?” Sander asked.

“Stay away from me,” Robbe heard himself say.

Sander stood and took a step towards him, reaching out to hold his arms. He’d hugged Robbe before, he’d touched him when Robbe had told him not to because Robbe needed it, needed the contact. He didn’t expect it to be any different now, but it was. There was too much happening, too much in his head. Robbe couldn’t breathe.

“Robbe,” Sander said again.

“Don’t fucking touch me, you faggot.”

The look on Sander’s face hurt more than anything he could have said to Robbe. Robbe pushed him aside and left the room, his feet taking him into his own room. He slammed his door, disregarding the rule that says he couldn’t have it closed during the day. His chest was tight, he couldn’t breathe, the room was spinning, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe.

There was banging on the door, but Robbe couldn’t move, he couldn’t stop himself, he heard screaming, what was happening? The door was thrown open and orderlies were rushing in, he couldn’t breathe, there were hands on him, he couldn’t breathe, who was screaming?

“Robbe!” a voice cut in.

His throat was raw, he was screaming, he couldn’t breathe, he was sweating, he was screaming. He had his hands over his ears, he was screaming, he was crying, he couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t breathe.


	7. You're Not a Bad Person

Robbe’s doctor told him he’d had a panic attack. It wasn’t something that Robbe had ever experienced before, so it was strange to finally have something to put to that name. A panic attack. Robbe had always thought of tv shows when people were hyperventilating or rocking themselves in corners. 

“Why was I screaming?” Robbe asked.

“Well, there could be many reasons,” his doctor told him. “You could have been screaming because that was what felt best to get out your panic. You could have felt scared or threatened. Whatever happened to trigger the panic attack could have brought up forgotten memories or past trauma.”

“Trauma?”

“An event that happened in your life that was deeply disturbing.”

“Like…” Robbe shrugged. “Rape?”

His doctor looked at him for a moment. “Robbe, are you trying to tell me something?”

“No!” Robbe shook his head and waved his hand. “That was just the first thing that came to mind. My mama… was raped when she was little and it’s caused a whole slew of problems for her in her adult life.”

His doctor nodded. “But you’ve never experienced anything like that?”

Robbe thought for a moment, hesitated. “No.”

There was a moment of silence, before, “Robbe, tell me about being gay.”

“I’m not…” It was a knee jerk reaction. He couldn't say it, he couldn’t do it.

“You’re not what?” A pause. “Ready?”

“Yes.” Robbe sighed. “I’m not ready.”

“You’re not ready to tell me that you’re gay?”

“Stop saying that!” Robbe could feel himself getting angry.

“Stop saying that you’re gay?”

“Yes!”

“Why?” When Robbe didn’t answer, his doctor leaned forward. “Why do you want me to stop saying that you’re gay? You wrote it in your suicide note, you told your friends, you said that you were gay. I don’t understand why you want me to stop saying that you’re -”

“Because I don’t want to be!” Robbe screamed.

His doctor looked at him, one eyebrow quirked. “You don’t want to be gay?”

“I just…” He had tears in his eyes. “I j-just want to be normal.”

Something softened in his doctor’s face. “Robbe, you are normal.” When Robbe shook his head, his doctor leaned forward. “Robbe, you are completely normal. Being gay is normal, I promise you that. Just because some people don’t think so, doesn’t mean that being gay isn’t normal. You are fine.”

“No, I’m not!” Robbe was crying now. “I’m not fine! I can’t be gay, my friends… they say that they’re fine but I know they’re not, I can’t… stand the way that everyone looks at me…”

“Who?” his doctor asked. “The way who looks at you?”

“The…” A memory, a fist, blood on the pavement. “I just…” Robbe shook his head and deflated, slumping back in his chair. “I can’t go back there.”

“You can’t got back where?”

The truth was, Jens was Robbe’s first crush, but it was broken by  _ him _ . Robbe and his parents had gone to Barcelona for a summer, his parents trying desperately to fix their failing marriage. Robbe had met this boy, only a year older than himself, and something had happened. He didn’t really know what, he didn’t know how to explain it, but he thought it might have been love. He thought he might have fallen in love with this boy from Spain. This boy who might have pushed too hard sometimes, taken more than Robbe was ready to give, but was gentle after. This boy from Spain who spoke Flemish brokenly, who spoke English fluently, and who spoke Spanish with a power that poets and politicians dreamed of. And it had been a dream.

Until it wasn’t.

They had been walking down a street one night, hand in hand and feeling bubbly from stolen champagne and life. And there was a group of boys who took a disliking to them simply because they liked each other, and Robbe found himself alone in a dark alley at night, with blood on his face and in his mouth, and  _ he _ was gone.  _ He _ had left Robbe alone, unconscious, bleeding out in the middle of a city he didn’t know. And how could he explain this to his parents? How could he explain that he’d been attacked by a group of boys because they though something was wrong with him? Because there  _ was _ something wrong with him. And it burrowed in his mind, took hold over him, took root in his brain. He was wrong, he was disgusting, he was sinful, he was the scum of the earth.

“Robbe?” his doctor asked gently.

“I don’t… want to talk about it.”

“But you need to.”

Robbe shook his head, numbness spreading through his body. “I fucked up.”

“How?”

“I called Sander a faggot.” He looked up at the ceiling. “He tried to kiss me, and part of me really wanted it, but then it was like I was watching and hearing myself being an asshole. I have no idea what to do to make it better.”

His doctor took a breath. “Robbe, you need to talk. If not to me, though I would prefer that, then to someone. Someone who cares about you.”

Robbe looked at him, after a moment of silence. Should he speak? Could he speak? He couldn’t say it outright, couldn’t let himself say it. Who would believe him anyway? He had let it happen. “When does sex go from something that I wanted to something that I felt like I was obliged to give?”

“When you stop wanting it.”

He leaned his head back against the chair. “I didn’t want to have sex when I met him. I still don’t think I do, but I felt like I had to. I was his boyfriend, so I should let him have sex with me if he wanted sex. Right?”

“No.” His doctor leaned forward. “Robbe, if you didn’t want to have sex, then you didn’t have to have sex. Your consent is key, Robbe. I promise you that.”

“But… I didn’t stop it.” Robbe shook his head, leaning forward, too. “I didn’t stop him from… I just let it happen. That’s not… that’s not bad, right? I wasn’t a bad person?”

“You have never been a bad person.”

“Even if someone beat me up because of it?” Robbe swallowed. “Because I’m gay?”

“The bad people are those who find fault in someone else’s life when it has nothing to do with them. Robbe, you are not a bad person. You are a person who has been taken advantage of and abused. That does not make you a bad person.”


	8. I'm So Fucked Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really short chapter, sorry guys. I am overwhelmed with work at the moment, so my creative juices ain't really been flowing.

“Can’t you just leave me alone?” Sander snapped, closing his door.

Robbe jammed his foot in just before the lock clicked. “Please, just give me a minute. If you still don’t want to talk to me after, then fine, but please. I just want to explain.”

Sander opened the door again but didn’t move aside for Robbe to come in. “You have one minute.”

The hallway was no place to have a heart to heart, but Robbe took it. Sander was talking to him.

“I was fine with… with being gay.” He swallowed. “When I was younger. I had a boyfriend, I liked being with him, I…” His breath got stuck in his chest, but he pushed passed it. “We were in Spain for a holiday, my parents and I. They wanted to fix their marriage, they… it didn’t work, but I met a guy and he was only a year older than me, and he was super nice, and he knew what he was doing, and… I started feeling so pressured and freaked out by him because he kept pushing and doing things to me that I didn’t like, that I didn’t want.” Sander’s face went pale. “And I… We were going to a bar one night and we got j-jumped, and when I woke up, he was gone and there was blood and I… whenever I think of being with someone, when ever I think about being gay, it just brings all that stuff up.” He sighed. “I was fine, but then stuff happened, and now I’m not. Now I’m not okay.”

Sander dipped his head down and swallowed. “So… what does that mean for us?”

Robbe let out a slightly hysterical laugh. “Sander, fuck, I like you so much, and I can think about being with you and think about kissing you all day long, but when it actually came to it, when it comes down to the moment when you are going to kiss me, I panic, I freak out, it’s like my body remembers what he felt like when he was forcing himself on me and that’s all that’s in my mind.” He shook his head. “Sander, being gay, for me, is painful and uncomfortable and wrong because of what I’ve been through.”

“Being gay doesn’t make you wrong.”

“But it’s in my head as wrong.” Robbe laughed again. “Sander, I got beaten and yelled at and my mind took it and I got scared of being gay. Hearing what my papa would say, hearing what my mama’s Bible said, hearing my friends use gay as an insult, it just got so pushed into my brain and it hurts me and scares me to talk about it. I can feel panic in my chest and I am so close to crying because I can’t talk about this and it freaks me out so much, and-”

“Robbe, stop,” Sander said, placing his hands on Robbe’s shoulders. “Breathe, please, breathe.”

But he couldn’t, he was panicking again. Sander pulled him close and they ended up on the floor, Sander holding him against his body, stroking his back and telling him to follow Sander’s breathing. 

When Robbe’s breathing was almost even again, he sagged against Sander’s chest. 

“I’m sorry,” Robbe whispered. “For what I said.”

Sander pulled him closer. “I forgive you.”

“I’m so fucked up,” Robbe said. “I’m just going to fuck everything up.”

“Then we’ll fuck it up together.”


	9. Are You Okay?

Robbe found himself in Sander’s bed. Sander was sleeping next to him, his face soft and relaxed. The thin layer of panic that was in his stomach was still there, but he was learning to ignore it. He had opened up fully in therapy after his broken conversation with Sander, and had been learning to be okay with himself. There were things he might never be able to be okay with, and things he might have to deal with his whole life, but he had the support around him that he needed. He still had fears, he was still terrified of telling his mama. He wondered if she even knew where he was. She hadn’t been messaging him, she hadn’t come to visit him. His papa had been once, but not because he didn’t want to visit. His papa told him he couldn’t visit as often as he wished because he lived too far away, and when he got out of work at night it was too late to come to the hospital.

When Robbe suggested the weekends, his papa looked like he’d been struck by lightning. He hadn’t thought of the weekends, he had been so caught up in the week that it had slipped his mind. So he had promised to visit him over the weekends. His therapist had invited Robbe’s papa in to talk about his reaction to Robbe’s letter, to open that pathway of conversation between the two. Robbe was hopeful his papa would visit him more often than he had been doing.

His friends had come to visit him a lot, which made him feel a lot better. His friends were sticking around, that had to be a good thing. Even if, deep in his mind, he still fought against the idea that they hated him, they proved that they still loved him. They would do anything for him. He couldn’t tell them what had happened to him yet because he felt shame and embarrassment whenever it was brought up in therapy. He felt that he had to eventually, even if his therapist said it was his decision to tell people, or and when he wanted to. He only told Sander because he knew it would explain his actions. If his actions hadn’t happened, if he hadn’t called Sander such a vile thing, then he wouldn’t have told Sander, not yet at least.

Robbe looked over at Sander again to find him looking back, his greens eyes still slightly cloudy with sleep, his features still soft, a gentle smile on his face.

“Morning, cutie,” Sander whispered.

“Morning,” Robbe whispered back.

“How are you feeling?”

In lieu of an answer, Robbe leaned forward and kissed Sander. The blond boy kissed him back. Robbe’s mind flashed with fireworks and storm clouds, competing in his brain for control. Does this feel good or is it bad? Is it something that he had wanted for so long, or it is something that he should be absolutely refusing to even think about?

“Hey,” Sander said, placing a kind hand on Robbe’s shoulder. “Come back to me.”

“What?” Robbe asked, blinking a few times.

“You just kind of… shut down. Are you okay?”

Robbe nodded. “I’m okay.”

Even Robbe couldn’t tell if he was lying.


	10. A Man Like Me

Robbe found himself in a meeting with his papa on a bad day. He realised now that his bad days weren’t constant anymore, that his bad days had become very bad days only because they didn’t happen every day. He had good days now, days when he felt that he could be okay. Days when the things from his past didn’t seem so pressing, so hurtful. Those good days made the bad days worse because he could feel it crawling in his skin even more than usual. He could feel  _ his _ hands on his arms, on his hips, on his legs instead of Sander’s hands. Robbe could feel  _ his _ lips on his cheek when Sander was trying to kiss him. Days when it felt so suffocating that his brain was just providing him with things to hate about himself, awful words to spit at Sander and anyone else who was like him, who was gay or bisexual, just anyone who liked guys when they were one. He couldn’t get rid of that voice, that painful, scared, vicious voice, but he was learning to cope better.

Robbe had promised himself he’d never call Sander that again.

Sander made him promise that he’d also never call himself that again.

It was taking him a little longer than he had thought it would, and that day when his papa had come to visit wasn’t a great day because he had broken his promise to Sander.

“Why would you want to be with someone like me?” Robbe had asked that morning, deep into a depressive episode he’d been trying to ignore the signs of for a few days. “Why would you want to even know a fucking fag like me?”

“Hey,” Sander snapped kindly, kneeling down in front of Robbe’s bed and looking him in the eyes. “Don’t say that. Okay? I want to be with you because you make me feel so much more than anyone else. You make me feel safe.”

But Robbe hadn’t been fully able to accept what Sander said, and now he was in therapy with his papa. His papa was getting frustrated with him, he could see it, but trying not to be. He wasn’t good at dealing with his wife’s depression, so why would he be good at dealing with his son’s? Robbe kept thinking that he didn’t deserve his papa’s patience, and he found himself lashing out.

“Why are you here?” Robbe snapped.

“What?” his papa asked.

“You never cared when mama was depressed, when she was getting bad, so why do you care that I’m like that, too?” Robbe snorted, feeling distanced from himself, back to watching himself be an asshole, all the while raging against himself in his mind. But he kept on talking. “You just want to prove to the courts that you’re a good father, just trying to prove to your new girlfriend that you’ll be good to her kids, but you just want a normal family and a normal life. So why not just leave?”

His papa had gone red in the face, but he looked more embarrassed than angry. “That’s why you think I’m here? So I can prove to my partner that I’m a good father?”

“Why else would you be here?” Robbe asked. “You walked out on me and mama when I was thirteen, you left me in charge of taking care of her. I didn’t know what I was doing, how could I have known what I was doing? Papa, I needed you and you fucked off!”

There was a pause.

Robbe’s therapist cleared his throat. “I think what Robbe is expressing has been weighing on him for a while, Mr. Izjermans. Do you have anything to say?”

“I…” Robbe’s papa sighed. “I know that I made mistakes, Robbe. I couldn’t take her anymore, she was too much for me to handle. I-”

“Then why didn’t you get help for her?” Robbe asked. “Why did you think I could handle it?”

There was another silence. 

“I hadn’t… thought clearly, when I was leaving.” He sighed again. “I should have taken you with me.”

“I wouldn’t have left her.” Robbe took in a deep breath. “I’m not like you.”

“I’m glad.” His papa looked up at him with damp eyes. “I’m proud of you, Robbe. I am proud of the man you’re becoming. I’m scared for you because you are facing things that I will never know. Things I will never have experience with. But I hope to God that you never become a man like me.”

He didn’t really know what to do next. Robbe had never imagined having a talk like this with his papa. He didn’t know how to move on from it. His papa was looking at him with sad eyes.

“Why did you go into my room?” Robbe asked.

“Because I felt that something was wrong.” 

“I meant to put my note into my drawer, I didn’t want anyone to find it.” Robbe looked down at his hands. “But…” He sighed. “Thank you. For what you did.”


	11. No, I Don’t

Sander’s lips were always soft, even if they were chapped. And Robbe found, even on his worst days, that kissing Sander was something he very much enjoyed. There was more, though, that Robbe enjoyed about Sander. His hands, his hair, the way he was soft in all the right ways but pushed back when Robbe needed it. Robbe loved the way he smelled, a mix of soap, shampoo, cologne, and something that was just Sander. The way he listened, the way he spoke. The way he looked at Robbe like he’d hung the moon.

The way he backed away when Robbe couldn’t be touched, the way he knew when Robbe couldn’t feel Sander’s hands anymore, when he could only feel  _ his _ hands. The way he spoke gently when Robbe was far away, telling him about their surroundings, the seats or bed or hallway they were in, the time it was, the weather outside.

When Sander had bad days or weeks, Robbe tried to be just as kind and just as present. But sometimes, when Sander was curled up around him because he needed the anchor in the sea of depression that was wrecking his mind, Robbe felt his skin crawling. Sander was clinging to him, maybe with tears in his eyes, because he needed Robbe, and he couldn’t tell that Robbe couldn’t stand the way his skin felt against his own. But Robbe curled around him, too, claiming that touch, claiming the way it felt good, and tried, not to erase or push away, but to replace the feeling. Robbe wanted to be able to hold Sander, to have Sander hold him, without feeling like his skin was tearing off in painful strokes. 

“Are you okay?” Sander asked on one such evening. 

He wasn’t crying, like he had been the day before, but he was still upset. Sander was deep in a depressive episode, yes, but he was also sad because of the news he had gotten a few days prior. Sander was leaving the hospital, he had spent his time here and was well enough to leave. He had been there for a month before Robbe, since before the school year had started, and now was going home again.

“I’m…” Robbe sighed, squirming slightly. “No, but… I don’t want you to stop touching me. If you need me, then I want you to be there, here.”

Sander hummed. “Where would be better to touch you?”

Robbe took in a deep breath. “Not my waist, maybe my shoulders?”

So Sander moved his arm from around Robbe’s waist to his chest. He put his right hand on Robbe’s left shoulder, and rested his cheek on the other. “This better?”

“Yes.”

“Are you lying?”

A pause. “Yes. But I don’t want you to move.”

“I have to move, I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“I know.” Robbe sighed again. “Will you text me?”

“I’ll call you every night and text you all day.”

Sander kept his promise. The next night, when Robbe was crawling into bed, his phone screen lit up and it started to ring. Sander was facetiming him. Robbe fixed his hair nervously and clicked accept.

“Hey,” Sander said, smiling down at his phone. “How was your first day free of me?”

“It sucked.” Robbe smiled back at him. “Not being able to hug you after my therapy session really sucked.”

“What happened?” Sander asked, shifting in his bed to get more comfortable.

“It…” Robbe snorted humourlessly. “It just sucked. We talked about  _ him _ again, and how it was affecting my experiences of my life.”

Sander nodded. “I mean, it makes sense.”

“Yeah.” Robbe sighed. “But thinking about it makes my heart beat too fast. And it makes me feel like I’m never going to get better.”

“But you have.”

“What?”

“Well, you’ve gotten a lot better since you were admitted.” Sander smiled slightly. “You might not see it, but I do. You’re more comfortable in your skin, and you’re as depressed as before.”

Robbe considered. “I guess.”

“Do you still want to kill yourself?”

The question sent him for a tailspin. Robbe looked at Sander through the phone and thought. Did he still want to kill himself? Did he still feel like he was standing at the bottom of an insurmountable hill? Did he want to die? To stop everything around him and to stop the chance of anything from getting better? Robbe found that, even to his surprise, he didn’t.

“No.” Robbe sighed. “No, I don’t want to kill myself anymore.”


	12. No Means No

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter deals a lot with PTSD, flashbacks, and sexual assault. Of you don't feel comfortable with those topics, please read with caution. Take care of yourself

It had been a week since Sander had left, and Robbe realised that, while he was sad about not seeing Sander in person, he wasn’t generally miserable as a whole. Yes, his bad days were still there, but through a combination of medication and therapy, Robbe felt better than he had in months, years even. He no longer wanted to kill himself, he no longer wanted to die. He wasn’t pissed at his dad for finding his letter, he wasn’t disgusted with himself about what happened. The worst thing he felt now was the partial flashbacks, the feeling of  _ him _ on his skin, or worse, inside of him. He hadn’t experienced a full flashback, when his body and mind was fully thrown back into the situation. His doctor told him it was because he had accepted that it had happened to him, that Robbe had accepted that he had been raped, but his mind had forced the actual event away, locked it up in a box of amnesia because that’s what the brain does with trauma. And while he had known it was something that had happened, his brain didn’t feel safe enough to process it until he was there, at the hospital.

“But I’ve had these kind of feelings when I was at home,” Robbe said. “The feeling of  _ him _ touching me when I was in my worst places, when I was wanting to kill myself all the time, when I was at home, at Jens’ house. I don’t understand why they’ve gotten so bad now that I’m here.”

“Well,” his doctor said, “it could be because you are now, however forced it may have seemed at first, in the safest place you could be. You’ve not got the stressors of home, you’re not hanging with friends to distract you. You’ve accepted your sexuality, you’ve let another boy kiss you and hold you, and your mind is providing you with situations when you’ve felt that before. The mind is a big rolodex, flipping back and forth from memory to memory, providing you with information on how to handle and deal with situations. Your brain, however, when you’re in intimate situations, and not just intimate in a sexual way, provides you with the only example of intimacy it has, and that’s when you were with J-”

“Don’t,” Robbe said, looking down at his hands. “Please don’t say his name.”

“Robbe,” his doctor sighed. “You’ve been here for two and a half months, and your progress has been amazing, but you’re stalling because you won’t say his name again.”

“I’m scared that if I say his name, everything will come back, that it’ll get too big and it’ll come back at me and I won’t be able to handle it.”

“Robbe, you’re safe here.” His doctor leaned forward and took his hands. “I promise you, nothing bad will happen to you when you say his name.”

With a wobbling chin, Robbe looked back up at his doctor. “I don’t want to.”

“Please.” His doctor looked him straight in the eye, and Robbe was comforted. “Just once, to let it go. To let him go, to let his hold over your mind go.”

“Javier.” Robbe felt his stomach clench and his throat tighten, his whole body began to shake, but nothing happened. The world didn’t explode, the lights didn’t burst in their sockets, his doctor didn’t cringe away from him. Everything was alright. “His name was Javier.”

“There.” His doctor smiled gently at him. “You said it. Let him go. He can’t hurt you again.”

Robbe returned his smile, less genuine and less happy than the doctor’s, but he was trying.

“Now,” his doctor said, letting go of Robbe’s hands and leaning back in his chair once more. “About your diagnosis.”

“I know I’m depressed.” Robbe shrugged. “You’re already giving me medication for that.”

“I know.” His doctor sighed. “Your depression, however, is more of a symptom than an illness. You’re depressed, yes, but your depression is a part of your post traumatic stress disorder.”

“PTSD?” Robbe repeated. “I have PTSD?”

“Flashbacks, sleep problems, you’re jumpy when it comes to people touching you. You’ve told me that you’ve always had problems at school, but your father told me it was only after your trip to Spain. He brushed it off as growing troubles, as most parents do when their teenagers start to exhibit problems at school within their teenage years. You avoid sexual or intimate situations with other men to the extent of homophobic actions, the only symptom you don’t exhibit is stomach pains. You have frequent headaches, or so I could gleam from the school nurse records. You’re almost textbook, Robbe.”

“But… PTSD is for people who’ve been to war, not people who had a bad relationship.”

“PTSD is for anyone who experienced repeated trauma, Robbe. Your ‘bad relationship’ was repeated trauma. You’ve experienced enough that your brain has changed. I suspect that, during your time in Spain and shortly after, you displayed signs of acute stress disorder, but your parents either didn’t notice or just chalked it up to you being a teenager.”

Robbe looked down at his hands again. “I have PTSD?”

“I am quite sure that you do.”

It took Robbe a few days to process it. PTSD? But that was only what war veterans had. A disorder that was caused by bombs and being shot at and having your transport vehicle rolled over by enemy artillery. Not this. Not what  _ he _ … Not what Javier had done to Robbe. Could it have been? Robbe had only just been able to admit that he’d been raped, he hated the word. He now had to contend with the fact that he had PTSD? 

The boys came to visit a few days later, coming into Robbe’s room with all the energy and bluster that they normally did. Aaron was bemoaning that Amber still didn’t like him, Moyo was saying how he and Noor were still talking, and now mostly not about Robbe, and Jens was simply happy to be there, to see his best friend again. They had visited frequently since his admittance, but it had been a while since their last visit.

“So,” Moyo asked, setting into the chair at Robbe’s desk. “Any new developments? I know that Sander left a few weeks ago, you guys do any,” and here he raised his eyebrows suggestively, “before he left?”

Robbe snorted. “No. We haven’t really gotten past kissing.”

“Damn,” Moyo said. “You guys are moving slow.”

“Well,” Jens said. “There’s probably a rule against having sex with other patients, right, Robbe?”

“There is, but Sander and I… well, I didn’t want to have sex anyway.”

“Why?” Aaron asked.

“Bro,” Moyo sighed. “If he doesn’t want to have sex, then he doesn’t want to have sex. End of story.”

Robbe smiled. 

“Exactly,” Jens emphasized. “If a guy doesn’t want to have sex, then he doesn’t have to have sex. It’s that simple. No means no, bro.”

“Yeah, I know!” Aaron said. “But… generally guys are the one who, you know… Want to have sex.”

Moyo rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but if a guy doesn’t want to have sex, he doesn’t have to have sex. And he doesn’t have to give his friends a reason, even if there is one.”

There was a moment of silence. It was comfortable, and Robbe felt safe.

“I do have a reason, though. If you want to know it.”

All three of them looked up at him, Moyo from the desk chair, Aaron from the floor, and Jens from next to him on the bed.

“You don’t have to tell us if you don’t feel comfortable,” Jens said, his voice the most serious Robbe had ever heard it.

“I know.” Robbe sighed. “I want to. Or, I feel like I should. It’ll explain some things. But… please don’t tell anyone else. The only people who know right now are me, my doctor, and Sander. I want to be the one to tell people, if I tell people.”

Jens nodded, his brows furrowed.

“What?” Robbe asked, with a slight laugh. He couldn’t help it, Jens looked almost jealous. “Why the face?”

“You told Sander before us?” Jens asked. “You’ve known him for two months, you’ve known us longer.”

“I had to tell him.” Robbe sighed again. “We were making out and one thing was leading to another, and… I just froze. And I had to tell him why.”

“What do you mean, you just froze?” Aaron asked.

“Yeah,” Moyo said. “Why did you freeze?”

Robbe felt his stomach tie itself in knots. “When I was fourteen, so two years ago, my parents and I went on a holiday to Spain. My parents were trying to fix their marriage, trying to get close again, but they didn’t really want to try, so they brought me. You can’t be intimate when your fourteen year old son is in the other room.” He snorted humourlessly. “I met this guy. I knew I was gay at that point and I was okay with it. I didn’t want anyone to know because they would pick on me, but I had accepted it. I was okay with being gay. And… this guy, he was amazing. He was kind and sweet and he was gentle and funny…”

“But?” Jens asked.

“What?” Robbe asked, looking over to his friend. He could feel his mind start to wander as it often did when he was talking about this. “But what?”

“It sounded like there was going to be a but at the end of your sentence,” Moyo clarified.

Robbe nodded. “He was all those things, but he wasn’t, at the same time. You guys have made fun of me in the past for being a virgin, but I have been since I was fourteen.”

“What?” Moyo asked, laughing. “You beat all of us?”

Aaron moaned a little, upset. “I really am going to be the last one!”

“Guys, shut up!” Jens snapped.

Robbe smiled at him, just a little, to show his thanks. “His name was… Javier, and he was a year older than me. I thought it was so cool, being with an older guy. We’d only really been together for a week the first time he took me to his apartment, and his parents were out so… one thing led to another, and I realised that I didn’t know what I was doing, that I didn’t… want to be doing this, but he kept…” Robbe felt his skin crawl. “He kept…”

It clicked with the others, what he was trying to say.

“Fuck,” Aaron muttered.

“He raped you?” Moyo asked.

Robbe nodded, pulling his legs to his chest. It helped, sometimes, with the feeling of  _ him _ there. “It… happened and he told me I had been so good. That I had been the best he’d ever had. Told me that I had to sleep with him because he was showing me all this stuff and that he could have any person he wanted, and he had chosen me. I owed him that much. And… I believed him. Whenever he wanted sex, I let him have it. I never enjoyed it, I just… laid there, and let it happen. And it got into my mind that I deserved it. That it was happening because I was gay and… in my head, I started to associate being gay with the pain that I kept feeling, and it was bad and I couldn’t let anyone know because they would just hurt me, and I couldn’t be gay because it was just pain.” He brushed a stray tear from his cheek. “We were out one night, a few nights before I was going to go home, and we got attacked. This group of guys came at us and all I can remember is pain. I woke up I don’t know how long later, alone in an alley, my wallet was gone, I was bleeding from my nose and my stomach was killing me, and Javier was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t see him again after that. Part of me was relieved.”

The others were silent, and Robbe noticed then that Jens was crying.

“Hey,” Robbe said softly. “Please don’t cry.”

“No,” Jens said, scrubbing his face. “I knew something was wrong when you got back but I never asked. I should have asked.”

“I never would have told you.” Robbe reached out a hand, all the contact he could take right now. “Don’t do this to yourself, it’s not your fault.”

Moyo got up from his seat and wrapped his arms around Jens. Robbe was thankful he was hugging Jens, because Robbe felt that he couldn’t move. He was rooted to the spot and his entire body was trembling with memory. Bad memory, horrible memory, but there was gentleness there, too. Something in his mind was saying, this isn’t the only memory. Sander’s smile came to mind, and it lessened a little, the overwhelming touch.

“Do…” Aaron was standing next to his bed. “Do you want a hug, too?”

Moyo and Jens looked over, willing to dog pile on top of Robbe to make him feel better.

“Please don’t touch me right now,” Robbe said. “I can’t… I don’t want you to.”

“Okay.” Aaron sat back down.

“Are you okay?” Jens asked.

“No.” Robbe didn’t want to explain, but how could he not? “Part of PTSD is flashbacks, and-”

“You have PTSD?” Moyo interrupted.

“Yes.” Robbe sighed. “And part of it is flashbacks, but there are several kinds of flashbacks. I don’t usually have full flashbacks, but the ones that I do have are bad. I usually have partial flashbacks, which is just a feeling, or a smell, or a sound. Sometimes…” He squirmed, it was getting too much. “I… The ones that I have to most are feelings. I can feel Javier, still, because my mind hasn’t processed the memory correctly. I can feel him… in me.”

“Jesus,” Aaron mumbled.

“I need to get up, I’m sorry.” 

Robbe stood and walked out of his room. His friends followed, but they kept their distance. He paced the hallway, and soon they had stopped to stand near his door.

“Does walking around help?” Jens asked.

“It helps to ground me in this time and place.” Robbe sighed again. “If I can create a disconnect with what my body is feeling and what is actually happening, then I can usually stop this from feeling so bad.”

The others stood and watched him. When he felt okay enough to stand still, he went back over to them.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be,” Jens said firmly. “If anyone should be sorry, it’s the asshole who did this to you.”


	13. Tomorrow

To Robbe’s surprise, his mama was there to pick him up when he was released from the hospital. She held him close to her chest for a long time, and Robbe felt himself melting into her embrace. It took him a few moments to realise that she was whispering into his hair, telling him she loved him, she would always love him, she was always going to be there for him. He felt tears in his eyes and he let himself cry. He went home with his mama, his papa following behind closely. His papa hovered for a few hours, but knew that Robbe was going to be safe there, possibly even safer than he would have been in his papa’s house.

“You call me if you need anything, okay?” his papa said. “Any time, day or night. Okay?”

Robbe nodded. “Thank you, papa.”

His papa left after giving him a tight hug.

Robbe settled into his room, looking around at his things from before. Before he went to the hospital, before his mama went to the hospital. Before he had to move in with his papa and before he had decided to end everything. He curled up in his bed and sat in the silence. It was calming, comforting, the quiet in his room. He could hear himself breathing, the soft fall of snow outside. The faint Christmas music filtering from downstairs, from the living room, where his mama was sitting with a mug of hot chocolate, or at least she was when Robbe left her.

He picked up his phone and called Sander.

“Hi,” Sander said when he picked up.

“Hi.”

There was a moment of silence again, and Robbe didn’t feel the need to fill it in anymore. Just to know Sander was out there, with him, near enough to talk to.

“How is everything in the ward?”

“I don’t know,” Robbe said. “I came home today.”

“You’re home?” Sander sounded excited.

“Yes.” Robbe smiled.

“How do you feel about that?”

“Cut loose.” Robbe sighed. “Everything I did was scheduled, and now I’m free to do as I want. It’s even Christmas soon, so there’s no more school. I’m happy about it, but… I don’t know.”

“I get it.” 

And Sander’s voice told Robbe that he did. Sander understood what he meant. 

“I miss you,” Robbe said.

“I miss you, too.” Robbe heard Sander sigh. “Do you want to come over tomorrow?”

“I’d love to.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”


End file.
